Salt
by Rackham Rose
Summary: A simple message can sometimes be the hardest one to understand. [SxS; oneshot]


**Author's Note:** This is, in fact, intended to be a Tokyo Babylon 1999 fic rather than an actual Tokyo Babylon proper fic. The difference is that TB99 is the live-action movie based on the Tokyo Babylon manga. What little translation I've ganked from the person who gave it to me (and the worse-than-scant resources on the 'net) basically indicates that TB99 could either take place in 1999 _instead_ of the Apocalypse depicted in X and is therefore an alternate ending to the S&S plot arc thingy, or that it could take place when Subaru is 21. I like to think it's set in 1999.  
Also, it was written (late) as a birthdayfic for Ko. Too bad I couldn't wrap it!  
  
-,--  
  
The envelope was wedged between two bills, and it stood out with a sort of quiet dignity. There was something about the way the black-inked name showed against the translucent paper, _Sumeragi Subaru_ written in a spiky businesslike hand that was neither casual nor careful, that demanded attention.   
  
The flap came open easily, without tearing; the neatness in assembling this letter had been calculated perfectly--   
  
Something spilled into his palm.   
  
He startled as it tickled his hand--it was powder of some kind, white, anonymous, fine enough to be almost anything. For a moment fear and anger surged in him together, _how dare he, how dare he even try--_   
  
There was a stiff piece of handmade paper inside the envelope as well, neither pink nor white, with the vague shapes of dried petals in it. Subaru tugged that out one-handed and unfolded it.   
  
_Do you understand?_   
  
Just that one line of text, in black ink, and an inverted pentagram in the bottom left-hand corner of the paper--there was nothing else for him there, no other clue to the all-important _why_ that tugged at him now.   
  
Frowning, he lifted his hand to his lips, touched the tip of his tongue to the white powder, fully prepared to spit it out and throw the letter across the room if it had the non-taste of poison or the too-sharp tang of medicine.   
  
It didn't.   
  
He had been sent an envelope full of salt.   
  
Subaru worked three jobs that day, and canceled the fourth and fifth to stay at home and lie in bed, rolling salt crystals in the palm of his hand and watching them settle into the groove of his life-line.   
  
The Sakurazukamori knew how to make meaningful gestures, but he couldn't tell which meaning this one was supposed to hold.   
  
For people in his trade, salt had a number of uses. As a poor conductor of magic, it was valuable in creating wards that kept magic out of certain spaces; it was used in sealing and purifying, but also in cursing, in leaching energy away from places in the same way that it drew the fertility out of farmland.   
  
So it might be a warning, or a threat...   
  
...but even considering that, it wasn't as widely used as the soft chalk his clan quietly imported from the cliffs several thousand miles away, the kind he kept in his duffel bag or in the broad sleeves of his _shikifuku._ Silver, too, was something that sealed and cursed. He'd heard that garlic was used in the same way in Europe, sometimes.   
  
But the envelope held salt.   
  
Salt preserved dried dead things, and it stung an open wound badly. Salt was tears and sweat and a faint taste in blood.   
  
It was beyond him.   
  
The moon was a thin, weak glow behind clouds by the time he poured the salt back into the envelope and curled up beneath his thin, worn comforter. When he dreamed, he dreamed of a tree that grew on poisoned earth and bore fruit the colour of old silver.   
  
Another envelope came the next afternoon--delivered by hand, the woman at the front desk said in a breathlessly thrilled tone. Again there was salt, again that question.   
  
_Do you understand?_   
  
Subaru slid it into his duffel bag once he was clear of the apartment building's lobby, and then, feeling somewhat giddy, hailed a taxi. Normally he wouldn't have indulged, but he had a mystery settling around his shoulders, and he was late for a dinner appointment with a client.   
  
The client had, very generously, offered to treat Subaru to dinner at a new Thai restaurant; when the taxi pulled up, Subaru understood why. The place was glossy and new and full of chatter. No one would care if they discussed a job there, and no one would hear.   
  
Fortunately, it didn't seem to matter that he was late, that he was flustered and distracted and that his sincerity was a little forced. The client ordered what was, in Subaru's opinion, far too much food, and stole bites off of each elegant rectangular dish as he spoke.   
  
The food struck him as being a little off, and he wasn't sure why.   
  
It was a new restaurant, with a brilliant, up-and-coming young chef in charge--someone who had been on _Iron Chef,_ and had scored well but lost. Subaru had seen the episode very, very late one night, after a long day, and half-remembered it now, the memory strained and tattered by the insomniac daze it had been formed under. The flavour of everything felt like that memory: blurred, muted, not as bright and complex as it should have been.   
  
_Maybe I should find a teahouse where I can do meetings,_ Subaru thought, and reached for the tiny, artistic glass salt shaker.   
  
And he stopped.   
  
The solution was a firework in his mind, a blue fountain of understanding. He stood up so fast that he nearly went sprawling over the edge of the table; his coat twisted around his waist, riding up clumsily. His client stared, eyes wide, mouth full of bland shrimp.   
  
Subaru made it halfway through an excuse, and then bolted, heart pounding.   
  
Darkness had already fallen by the time Subaru's knees gave out.   
  
He'd looked in every place that had come immediately to mind. He'd run towards streets whose locations he only vaguely remembered, lingered outside of buildings he'd only visited once or twice before, skirted the edges of Ueno Park.   
  
He understood, and he couldn't say so.   
  
He needed a cigarette.   
  
Rainbow Bridge stretched out before him, white and imposing, too long to cross tonight. If he'd had much of a voice left, he would have screamed at it. _I understand. I know what you meant. I know I'm stupid, I know I should have realised from the start, should have seen the signs you laid out for me, I know I know I know. I can do better this time. Come back, goddammit._   
  
"I'm glad I'm so lucky, or we would have been running in circles all night."   
  
His heart wrenched inside his chest. He felt old coats of bitterness and habit and blame start to break, felt the flaws go through them that would eventually reduce them to dust, and some part of him clutched at despair because it was all he had known for years.   
  
And the boy in him, the boy with wide eyes and a wider heart, said _enough. I know what misery is like, and I hate it, and I want it to stop now that I have the chance._   
  
"My mother didn't often tell me stories, but there was one she told that I remember very vividly."   
  
Subaru tilted his head to one side, not wanting to close his eyes, not wanting to miss the clean lines of Seishirou's body in the twilight. Somewhere beyond those broad shoulders, fog was rising from the Bay; it was rich with hints of colour in the semidarkness, as if Seishirou's voice were being brushed across the horizon in paints.   
  
He knew this story.   
  
"There was a king, you see, and he had three daughters and only one kingdom. He called the first daughter to him, the oldest, and asked her, Child, how much do you love me?"   
  
He exhaled smoke, and Subaru breathed in. The air around them was crisp, cool, alive with possibility.   
  
"And she responded, Oh, father, I love you more than my life. And he gave her a third of his kingdom and called his second daughter to him."   
  
Why had Subaru never noticed that faint accent in his voice before? When he spoke, there was a sort of gentle catch to his words, a faint stumbling as if there had long ago been some sort of break in the bones of his Japanese education that had never set properly. He spoke with longer vowels, with the occasional elegantly rolled "r". No sound was wasted.   
  
"And he asked his second daughter, Child, how much do you love me? And she told him, Oh, father, I love you more than God."   
  
Subaru suddenly wanted to hear him sing.   
  
"And he gave her a third of his kingdom, and then called the last of his daughters to him."   
  
Seishirou paused, possibly for effect, possibly to make certain Subaru understood.   
  
The moon was rising beyond the Tokyo skyline.   
  
"Like meat loves salt," Subaru whispered.   
  
It was a cool night. Seishirou offered Subaru his coat for warmth, and when Subaru put his hands into the pockets he felt the outlines of feathers beneath his fingers.   
  
"She got the whole of his kingdom in the end," Seishirou said, almost casually. "Let's go home."


End file.
